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Doreen Lawrence: I still have to close my bag in a shop to show I’m not stealing

There is still institutional racism in some ranks of the Metropolitan Police, Doreen Lawrence said today.

Baroness Lawrence, the mother of murdered teenager Stephen, also claimed attitudes in the wider community were still racist. She said that, as a black woman, she felt she had to prove she wasn’t stealing in shops.

She made the comments 15 years after the publication of the Macpherson report into her son’s killing.

In an interview with the BBC she said she did not believe police attitudes had changed “very much”, adding that black people were still targeted by stop and search.

Baroness Lawrence added: “When you walk into a store you do get a second glance. You walk in a certain way with your bag closed … That fear is there. I think in the black community there’s always a fear of being accused or the police stopping you.”

She was also asked about the case of gang member Mark Duggan. Duggan, who was carrying a gun, was shot by armed officers in 2011. A jury later ruled that while he had not been holding the gun at the moment he was shot, his killing was “lawful”.

She said: “You can’t say it’s an honest mistake when a police officer is following you and [they] have the opportunity of stopping you and then all of a sudden that person is dead, why?”